Sound Recordings

The library holds sound recordings of many rap and hip-hop recording artists. Use the catalog to search for artists or albums from Busta Rhymes to L L Cool J. Most are held at Residence Hall Libraries, but here are some recordings held at MPAL, as well as some useful online music services.

Because Soundcloud's item tags are user generated, there is no controlled vocabulary for searching for rap and hip hop related audio. This means the best results are yielded by searching for known tracks or artists; however, the following tags may be useful:

# hip-hop/rap
# hip hop
# hip-hop
# hiphop
# rap

Lyrics and Song Analysis

The full spectrum of this vibrant genre is represented in this book by nearly 100 artists, including: Cypress Hill, Dr. Dre, Missy Elliot, Eminem, 50 Cent, Ludacris, Notorious B.I.G., Run-DMC, 2Pac, and many others.

A crowd-sourced (and artist/producer-sourced) website for the collective annotation of rap lyrics/beats, from “Rapper’s Delight” to To Pimp A Butterfly. Also includes the tools Rap Stats and The Rap Map.

Instruction and Study

The format: One chapter, one artist, one album, blow-by-blow and track-by-track, delivered straight from the original sources. Performers, producers, DJs, and b-boys step to the mic to talk about the influences, environment, equipment, samples, beats, beefs, and surprises that went into making each classic record.